Invidious – In Death

Invidious are a Swedish death/black
metal band from Uppsala, Sweden, a city also home to Watain and In
Solitude. What first drew me to this band was the discovery that Pelle
Åhman, vocalist in heavy metal band In Solitude
(a personal favourite), was also the vocalist in a death metal band.
Having heard his fantastic clean vocals and spurred on by the few hints
of harsh vocals in In Solitude’s first two albums, I was curious to see
what Pelle had been getting up to in this side-project of his. Their
only release is this, their 2011 EP, ‘In Death.’

The first thing to make quite clear is that this is not In
Solitude. This is old-school Swedish death metal at its best. Chaotic,
heavy, low-fi and fuzzy, noisy, and heavy as hell. Each of the four
tracks on this EP are tight and focused assaults on the senses. Åhman’s
vocals are superb, at times sounding like Erik Danielsson of Watain but
with a more consistently extreme sound. One the one hand this means
less variety, but given the short length of the EP this isn’t a major
issue. The overall ‘sound’ of the band isn’t easily pinned down: on the
one hand comparisons could be made to Entombed, Degial, or Entrails. But comparisons could equally be made with early Watain, Valkyrja, or Dissection.

Opening track ‘Black Blood’
is a pretty strong start to the album. Blastbeats, nicely mixed bass, and some
frenzied, chaotic riff-work, with the harsh vocal acting as the icing on
the cake. This sort of description could easily be applied to the
following three tracks though; Dead Salvation Spawn, Throne of Death,
and Visions. But not all songs are created equal – some here are
evidently stronger than others. The chorus sections on the first two
tracks just don’t do it for me. The feeling of relentless chaos is lost
as they slow down for these choruses, often allowing single notes to
reverberate for seconds at a time and the drumming to slow down as Åhman delivers
what’s really quite a simple and bland chorus. The exact same can be
said for Dead Salvation Spawn: good until the chorus kicks in and then
just about bearable until they get back into their stride in the verse
sections again.

The last two tracks on this EP are the strongest by some margin. In
‘Throne of Death’ the chorus is a big improvement, no longer forsaking
the energy of the rest of the song and finding itself much more at home
within the context of the rest of the song. That said it still suffers
from the problem of getting a little lazy with the guitarwork behind the
vocals, content to just let a few notes hang behind the vocals.
‘Visions’ is my personal favourite from the four tracks on this EP, with
some compelling bass-work, all four members deftly transitioning
between the different parts of this song.

Ultimately, this is a good EP held back by a lack of time and experience
in refining their ability to write compelling tracks. It is for this
reason that while I will continue to enjoy this EP, I hope
that Åhman comes back from In Solitude’s compelling new album ‘Sister’
with a renewed sense of focus and a strengthened songwriting ability, to
put these into action in Invidious. There’s a lot to like about this
EP: the song is chaotic, heavy, and conveys a sense of honesty about
their vision for this band. I still recommend you give this a listen if
you’re into old-school Swedish death metal and keep an eye out for them
in the future, because there’s lots of potential here.